Closer
by UE
Summary: Random vignettes touching on almost all the characters in the series. [Incomplete]
1. The Lover

**Closer**

**

* * *

**Gareas woke and immediately sat upright. The bed sheets wrinkled around his bare waist and created large ripples in the watery silk. Not that it bothered anyone, though. Beside him, with mermaid hair and curled eyelashes, Leena stirred. She had always been a light sleeper. She had always been beautiful, too, but simple facts justified nothing these days.

"Mmm…"

Without turning to look at his lover, Gareas let his left hand wander over to where she lay. Even before their skin met, she opened her eyes and looked up at his shadowed form. She reached out and carefully clasped his hand in hers, intertwining their fingers with deliberate slowness. One by one by one…until they held on as so.

"Hey? Gareas?"

A heaved grunt. To anyone else, it may have not seemed as so, but she knew that the flat tone of his voice was actually a positive sign, that it indicated that there was absolutely nothing wrong, that he was just fine.

"I hope you're not worrying about Rioroute and Phil."

Gareas' free hand absently stroked the side of his face, right near the jaw. His eyes were still fixated on the dark emptiness in front of him, but she didn't seem to notice.

"I'm not worried about them…not even thinking about them."

He wasn't lying.

"Oh, Garu!"

Her pink lips parted like waves and everything within converged into carefree laughter.

"Stop lying!"

He wasn't lying.

Giggling, Leena brought their joined hands to her lips and kissed Gareas' fingers and then moved over to his knuckles. She was definitely feeling more awake now.

"Phil is really tough, full of spunk and determination. But she also has this sensitive side too. I've been noticing it recently, actually. She's always touchy when it comes to weakness, whether she thinks it's in herself or in her pilot. It's funny because more and more she has been reacting strongly about Rioroute. You can just see it, by the way she looks at him, or when he's not around, how she's occasionally distracted by small things that remind her of him. And she'll suddenly forget everything else and concentrate on those little details. It just goes to show how sensitive she truly is on the inside.

"But people are always sensitive about things they love, I suppose."

She smiled warmly, directly at Gareas' now closed eyes. His brows were furrowed and it looked like he was listening.

"She may seem mad now, but if Rioroute is planning to go to her room and say sorry to her like he said he would, then, well, I wouldn't worry too much about their argument as I would their…apologies."

The young man didn't find that funny, at least, not outwardly, but Leena did.

"No argument, no matter how strong, can break up people who are truly in love. So, really, Garu, there's no need to worry about them."

_But he wasn't lying_.

"I mean, nothing can come between two lovers, right?"

It was an odd question. But, it needed an answer. He knew the answer.

Gareas slipped his hand from Leena's and slid underneath his covers easily, placing his self right beside her. She danced to his movements with liquid grace and discovered rainbows of warmth within his inviting arms.

"Of course…"

He moved his face closer to hers, his eyes purposefully skipping over the blonde and blue, so that particular area around his jaw rested lightly on top of her soft head, while his eyes closed to a place with no painful pairings of color, a place of only undisturbed darkness.

"Nothing can."

* * *


	2. The Friend

**Closer**

* * *

Two figures, each holding a cigarette, stood in the shadows as if hoping to find warmth. The taller one sighed from what sounded like boredom.

"Is that girl, repairer number 89, depressed?"

His husky voice had caught her off guard, but she didn't admit it.

"What? I'm a doctor, not a shrink, Azuma."

Azuma leaned against the wall roughly, his back making a heavy thud upon impact. Rill was a bit startled, but the surprise seemed to flit away with a wave of her hand. With each flick of her wrist, she scattered speckled ashes onto the floor.

"And even if her behavior does indicate depression, she'll have to continue exhibiting them for a significant number of weeks before anyone can diagnose them as such. Besides, what's she got to be depressed for? It's only been a few days since her pilot was promoted to GIS. They weren't…"

She paused, as if for dramatic effect. Naturally, there was none.

"Romantically involved, were they?"

The instructor gave a lazy shrug and shifted his weight onto his other leg.

"Not at all."

He wasn't looking at her, so Rill's pride ordered her to do the same.

"Why do you ask, anyway? Since when did you care so much?"

Coming from her, the words, like the tobacco on their tongues, tasted bitter, but they let the flavor burn quietly in their minds.

"I don't. But then I see her. She looks so sad. I mean, it doesn't get me feeling sentimental or anything, but it does make me wonder. Pilot and repairer. What is so special about a pilot and his repairer? Why are they so close? Maybe it's that a pilot entrusts his life to his repairer and she, in turn, takes care of it, protects it as though it were more precious than her own. I guess it's sort of beautiful if you look at it that way."

The doctor didn't know what to think. With sheer reason, she tried hard to eliminate the possibilities that kept arising. Then, Azuma smirked from behind his cigarette and both her feelings and logic were confirmed.

"Definitely more than what I can say about most friends I've had."

He laughed too loudly and Rill tried not to visibly stiffen.

"More than what I can say about myself, actually."

Azuma's laughter faded with the dissipating smoke and he only succeeded in reviving the latter.

"I used to think that the relationship between friends ran deeper than anything else, Rill. I truly believed it. Before I started teaching, before I became a pilot, before--"

Right then, she couldn't take it any more, couldn't stand the sound of his voice or the smell of his cigarette. Casting aside all self-control, she turned to look at Azuma's face. Shockingly—yet, at the same time, not—Azuma's mouth was twisted, almost painfully so. At her angle, where his colored lenses could shield nothing from her, Rill saw the trembling light in the man's eyes and was scared for half a second. But she had always been adverse to that area of emotion. Anger and apathy were far safer, far simpler.

"Before what?

"Before what, Azuma?

"Why do you talk as if I don't know, as if you don't know?

"Just say it!

"Before WHAT!

"BEFORE YOU STARTED SMOKING!"

He blinked. She blinked. He blinked again.

Everything became dead and grey, crumbling into a vision of abandoned ashes. Then, and it even wasn't out of hostility, his eyes narrowed and he turned his head away so that Rill could no longer see his face even if she tried, which she didn't. One hand—the hand without the cigarette—curled into a fist, and slammed the wall, right beside his thigh. Nothing broke. Sturdy material. Azuma didn't move at all, and he wasn't bleeding. He was sturdy, too.

Suddenly, Rill wished she had shut up, wished that she could blow her smoke and smile in Azuma's face, that she could take away that sour taste in her mouth, that she could fast forward to a future that had no past so she could cry with an excuse, but it was too late now. It didn't matter, anyway, not like it ever had before. It would never matter.

Rising like realizations yet to be conceived, drifting like desires that would never be satisfied, the hazy smoke around them floated higher, becoming heavier but always moving higher.

Azuma's face eventually relaxed into casual contemplation. Continuing where he left off, he spoke because he never heard her words. He was ignoring the past.

"And now that I'm an Instructor, I think I understand. I completely understand it all. It's the relationship between a pilot and a repairer that's most important, that runs the deepest. Deeper than anything else."

Rill breathed out pent-up air.

"Deeper than anything else, huh? Even deeper than…"

But she stopped, neither of them listening to her wordless echoes. He could think and say whatever he wanted now because all she could think about was that they smoked different brands.

And the smoke grew thicker, replacing all sound, as it swirled around them in the shape of cloudy dragonheads waiting to bite. Azuma's shoulders tensed as he gazed at the ceiling, his white cigarette hanging limply between his dry, thick lips. Rill's face was pointed in the opposite direction. She took a nice long drag before dropping her cigarette and watching it roll a few centimeters into the neat pile of ash that had gathered by the sole of her shoe. She didn't even wait for it to stop before reaching into her coat pocket to light up another one.

* * *


	3. The Sister

**Closer**

* * *

It was a simple room. Four smooth grey walls, complete with no windows and an automatic sliding door on the southern wall leading to the outside. A closet and shelf were shoved up against the most right wall and in that right corner, farthest from the entrance, was a comfortable-looking futon nestling beneath neatly folded blankets. Towards the middle-left stood a small table, glossy mahogany in color but steely in smell. Near a wall where there should have been a window was a pale vase with a single flower, and on the table where the vase should have been was an archaic Japanese-styled tea set. The set's center consisted of a teapot, painted entirely black—save for the ruby-trimmed handle—from the base all the way to its slender neck and elegantly curved swan's mouth. Spaced beside the teapot were two small ebony cups, empty of drink and design, and next to the table was a slim young man wrapped in a kimono. 

"Older brother."

A short beep and the automatic door behind the voice slid to a close. The ruffling of clothes followed soon after, a sound that indicated approaching movement. Then a small black-eyed girl, to which both the voice and movement belonged, made her way across from the front of the door to the table's side before the young man was even able to take in a breath.

"Older brother…"

She spoke even more softly this time and bowed her head sideways in a slightly apologetic manner.

Her brother gave no response and no visible acknowledgement of her entrance. He sat still, his back straight, his hands folded, and his eyes closed, feigning a position for prayer. The sleeves of his traditional kimono, swathed in patterned blacks and reds, rippled past his elbows and dipped straight to the ground, matching quaintly with his sister's attire, a simple charcoal colored kimono sprinkled with faceless flowers and a light red obi fastened at the waist.

Slowly, the young girl looked up into her brother's face, passing over his small chin, traveling up the bridge of his nose, and arriving straight into his eyes. Upon seeing him return her gaze without any reserve and with equal intent, the girl felt the corners of her mouth curve into a small smile. However, her smile wasn't reciprocated in her brother's face so she stilled herself in an attempt to emulate. When she moved again it was when he finally spoke.

"The tea is getting cold."

His voice was neither impatient nor patient, neither gentle nor gruff. Immediately she nodded, breaking the bond between their eyes as she lowered her head and delicately raised her arms upwards so that the sleeves would roll back onto themselves and out of her way, gathering in folds above her elbows like several petals of a satin rose. Her fingers reached for the teapot, carefully tracing the smooth handle before asserting a grip and, with the utmost grace and precision, she lifted the pot and tilted it towards one of the cups.

An amber stream poured out from the sprout's mouth, steadily filling the cup's insides. Into the air, a small puff of steam stretched and dissipated. As silence settled over the room, all that could be heard were the rustlings of cloth rubbing cloth and the sound of the tea raining lightly against black ceramic.

Then, when the cup was finally filled, the girl put the teapot aside. With both hands, she clasped the cup and offered it to her brother, setting it down in front of him. But before she could remove her hands from the cup and return to the teapot in order to pour for herself, she found her brother's hands hovering over her own, almost touching, in a sure attempt to stay them. She raised her face towards his, questioningly. For a few moments they remained as though frozen, waiting unwittingly as the minutes lapsed, and then suddenly:

"Older…brother…"

Without looking away, she brushed her hand up and down against his in a way that he knew could only be hers alone, not quite lingering and not quite leaving, but simply moving with and against, pulling closer and closer as to an ocean's current, seeking only the stillness and the loving calm.

* * *


End file.
